Giving Compass' Take:

• Rosy Delamarter, a 17-year-old patient at Seattle Children's Gender Clinic, shares her story about discovering her identity and the process of transitioning.

• Young people grappling with gender identity need strong support systems. Nonprofits involved in LGBTQ+ issues can look to surface stories such as Rosy's in order to raise awareness on what pride truly looks like.

• After the Gavin Grimm ruling, what is the future for transgender rights?

In honor of LGBT Pride Month, Rosy Delamarter, a 17-year-old patient at Seattle Children’s Gender Clinic, shares her story about discovering her gender identity, the happiness that it brought her, as well as the support she found from friends, family and others in her life during her transition.

For years something inside me felt “off.”

As a little kid I never thought much of the fact that I had been assigned male at birth. Gender roles were equally unimportant in my mind — I played with Hot Wheels and Polly Pocket toys without a second thought. I was a little kid, after all.

It wasn’t until elementary school when I started hanging out with macho, playfully aggressive boys that I became critical of my own gender expression. I didn’t just stop playing with Polly Pocket toys; I was embarrassed that I had ever even touched them. After all, I was a boy, so I was supposed to shoot Nerf guns, punch my friends and gag at everything pink, right?

In junior high I became good friends with some girls at my school, and I slowly started to realize that the way I policed myself when it came to gender was actually making me unhappy. I didn’t like talking to anyone about it, but on the inside I found myself saying, “I would have been better off as a girl.”

Read the full article about finding pride in gender identity by Rosy Delamarter at Seattle Children's.